2298 - A Five-Time Founder’s Insights on People, Systems, and Exits with JL Davis Enterprises' Josh Davis

0:04Well, hey, Thoughtful Leader. Welcome to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur. On this show, I interview purpose-driven founders, experts, and change makers who are making a real impact in the world. Want to be a guest? Simple. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click podcast. I'd love to promote your story to our audience of over 100 ,000 and across over 2 ,300 daily episodes and counting. Want to get booked on other great shows like this? Simple. Go to podverified.com and get your free guest authority score. Thousands of hosts are looking for high quality guests and Podverified connects you the right way. Now let's dive into today's episode.

0:58With us right now, it's Josh Davis. You got two Joshes and one show, but Josh Davis, you are the founder and CEO of JL Davis Enterprises. I assume that's you. Your website is jldavisenterprises.com. Josh, it's great to have you. Yeah, thanks for having me, Josh. I appreciate being here. All right. So what was it like growing up as a Josh? What was it like growing up as a Josh? Actually, my mom used to call me Joshua, especially when she was trying to get me to do stuff. But yeah, I mean, I had a pretty typical good life, half Italian. So old school Italian mother. And yeah, being raised on the West Coast, spent a lot of time fishing and on the water.

1:45And so, yeah. Cool, cool, cool. What are you doing for fun these days? I mean, funny enough, just alluding to that, a big thing that I've gotten into is boating. As a kid, I sailed with my grandfather quite a bit. And I actually took him, I mean, that's a long story, but took him on a last adventure before he passed on and got in a crazy storm off the Oregon coast and sailing over, you know, 50, 60 foot waves and, and, and barely made it out alive on that. So since he passed away, now I've got my first boat. And so I'm slowly venturing out. It's just a powerboat right now, but getting back on the water with the kids has been, been fun, but I'm not doing any deep sea anymore.

2:30yeah right right what kind of boat do you use i just gotta we've got a dock outside our place so we've got uh just a 21 foot like ski and fish and tubing with the kids kids so a great family boat yeah big difference than going deep sea sailing with my grandfather so yeah but we're having lots of fun yeah the kids are old enough we're we're able to to go out on the water now so well you're in vancouver so you have a lot of beautiful places to go and and plenty of water that's accessible to you. So that's right. Yeah. Let's talk about, by the way, you're a five times founder, you, part of Canada's top 40 under 40.

3:09Tell us about the work that you do. Sure. So yeah, we've got a, I've got a family office, so we do acquisitions and then we have a consulting arm. So basically we help business owners scale, grow and exit in what we like to call the right way. You know, people that work with us, most founders are stuck in the weeds. Businesses doesn't run without them. They're involved in all the decisions and the firefighting. A lot of people that work with us, maybe they're getting a little bit burnt out. Maybe they're thinking about selling. They're missing opportunities with their families. And myself, I know that feeling really well.

3:49My wife, Loretta, and I, we lived it. We started a business a week after our honeymoon. And I mean, it started a small thing and we ended up building one of the fastest growing logistics companies in Canada. But it really consumed everything. It consumed our date nights, it consumed, you know, everything that we were doing revolved around the business, and we were involved in so much of it. And so one of the things we did after kind of a year into it, we really focused on getting the right people in the right seat. So getting really strong and recruiting and then and then building the right systems to help us scale.

4:26And so eventually, you know, within three years of kind of changing that, we sold it to the largest transportation companies in North America, one of the largest private equity backed. And so, yeah, that's just one thing. We kind of built things in a new way. And since then, we've kind of took it to another level. And so that shift has really allowed us to, you know, continue to grow, make an impact, not miss the, you know, the moments that matter most, like, you know, boating and doing things with your family, but still being able to scale. So really, that's our mission. Now, you know, we help other founders, you know, avoid the trap of, you know, that we fell into.

5:03And really, we kind of focus on three things. So we've got different groups of companies inside that help with, you know, people, you know, getting the right people in the right seats, A players, systems, we've got a technology company that, you know, helps put in scalable processes, automation, AI, stuff like that. And then myself, I help with, you know, the growth and strategic exit plan. So either you're going to grow. And, you know, one of the things that I found is, you know, I really believe you should always build your business like you're going to sell. And what I find, you know, if you do it right, you actually might not want to sell at all.

5:39So that's, that's really what we do today. We're just, you know, helping founders do the same transformation that my wife and I went through. Yeah. Okay. So we have an audience full of founders, CEOs, other top level leaders. And let's give them some great advice. Here we are into the second half of 2025. If I am the founder of a company and my goal is to eventually have a very successful exit at some point, however that looks, what things should I be doing years in advance? Yeah, there's a number of things. I mean, I kind of touched on it in my intro there, but the first thing, the most important thing is focusing on the people.

6:26So what I find in businesses that we're either acquiring or business that are looking to sell is that most of the businesses, if you're kind of stuck and you're not growing, a lot of it has to do with the people problems. And it's not just the team, but a lot of the times it's the leadership as well, because you got to get the right people in the right seats so that the business doesn't, you know, depend on the founder. So that's really important. The first thing I always tell people focus on that, getting the right people in the right seats, building the right leadership. If you want a players to help the business grow, they got to be in an environment where they believe in the vision and the leadership.

7:01So that's always the most important thing is start with the people. The next thing is a big one, especially now, Josh is systems, technology, AI automation, making sure everything is, you know, streamlined your, your, your CRMs. I mean, your recruiting processes, your customer service, you really want to get all your systems and everything together. So, because when you're looking to sell your business, you know, the, the, the new owner doesn't want to have to rely on a long transition with the founder. So if you have all that set up, the people, the systems you know, those are really the two, the two most important things you got, you want to focus on.

7:40And then if you do that right, your business should be scaling and growing. And every buyer, you know, they want to buy a business that can continue to grow and scale without the founder. When you see companies that aren't scaling like they should, and I know that that's a good chunk of folks that you work with. When you start troubleshooting, are there any common patterns that you see? you know what's interesting what we see a lot is the founder typically has been doing it for so long and they can do a lot of the things quicker than delegating and and so they just they basically what I what I found is the founder really believes that they should be doing certain things and they don't learn to delegate or to build the right leadership team in order to handle it.

8:31So a lot of people are just stuck in the weeds doing too many things. And so the first thing that we look at is making sure we look at what the founder's currently doing and finding out right away, especially like the lower tasks, what can we pull off of them immediately in order to pass off to someone that can take over those tasks? And I mean, that was one thing that I personally had to go through. I had to learn that I didn't need to be in all the sales meetings. I didn't need to handle all the big accounts. And so it just really comes down to working with the owner. One big thing we do is make sure they have an executive assistant, making sure that all the administrative tasks gets pulled off of them immediately.

9:08Cause a lot of time you get, you know, you get into all those like administrative tasks when somebody else could do it better than you. So yeah, I, I see as usually the founders hanging on to too many things and they're not empowering and delegating. That's, that's usually the first thing that we, look to try to help. Yeah. Certainly being way too involved in operations is going to be a major red flag. I think, you know, folks like Michael Gerber would probably scold pretty hard if that's the case. You know, another thing too is, you know, a lot of, particularly like in the B2B world, a lot of agencies, consultancies, I think you end up seeing a lot of founders that are still involved in sales, which they might be the kink and the hose there too.

9:51I'm sure you've had some client experiences with that? Oh yeah. A lot. So a lot of the times, and depending on the size of the business, usually that's kind of the last thing that the founder's holding onto. They believe like they need to be in those sales meetings. Nobody can close. Yeah. No one can sell like that founder's magic, baby. And you know what, like to a certain extent they're right. But even like if your team can do it, you know, 70, 80 % of what you can do and you can get that to scale, that's when the magic really happens. There's only so much time in the day. And, you know, even like myself, when I was involved in too much sales, flying all over North America, meeting with clients, it's like, I have to sacrifice so much time to my family and it's not good for the business as well.

10:36So then that's when you build up sales teams, train them, have good systems and training so that they can go out there and continue to grow the business without you. That's a huge thing, Josh. Yeah, Josh, you share some really great content on your social media. One in particular, I'm on your LinkedIn. And you shared something. It was 10 rules I wish I knew in my 20s. You don't have to say anything that you shared in that image. But if I were to ask you that question, I don't know if any of these you're kind of stuck out for yourself. What advice would you give to your 20-year-old self today, knowing what you know now?

11:16Totally. One of the things that I did, and I probably did this this is probably the biggest impact I have. And it was, it was in my later twenties. I wish I did it earlier was that I went to work for a very successful entrepreneur and I worked for, and even my friends told me, you know, what I was getting paid was significantly under what I should have been for what I was bringing to the table. And I learned that by sacrificing that what I could have got compensation going to work for a you know a different organization I learned how to be a business leader how to treat people well how to grow businesses the right way so it's just one of those things like I really believe especially when you're in your 20s like it really matters about getting around people that can you can get you can get mentor from, learn from their leadership.

12:13And that, you know, I worked with him for two years and, um, and it was the, it was, it was like earning my MBA in business. So even though people told me I could have got, you know, more money doing things elsewhere, I actually just worked with this guy. He mentored me. Um, and yeah, I owe a lot of my success in learning how he ran businesses. So, um, yeah, work harder than you're paid for, get around the right leadership team, get away from that party culture. I mean, I mean, in my early 20s, I, you know, spent a lot of time with my friends, you know, hitting up the bars and things like that.

12:44And yeah, I just feel like that, that that can be a bit of a trap. So I fortunate enough, I got out of that in my mid to late 20s. But yeah, those are two things I think is really important. It's funny now at my age, I have to force myself to go to the bars, you know, just, you know, go out with my wife, We go to shows. You know, I'm trying to get into billiards. Like I've been taking my older son to go play pool. And some people were there and I was kind of asking them some tips and stuff. And they're like, you want to join a pool league? And I'm like, yes, I do. Oh, I would love that. Like when invitations come, yeah.

13:22So Josh, let's just share to our friends that are listening, how might they know that they're ready for a conversation with you? and what does that look like? Yeah. So the people that come in and typically it's, there's, there's two groups. So it's one, it's someone, maybe it's a baby boomer, someone who's, you know, had a business for 10, 15, 20 years. They don't have a succession plan. Maybe, you know, their kids are off doing something totally different and they've got this business that relies heavily on them. And they're trying to figure out what do I do? My kids don't want to take on this business.

14:00like how do I make a plan and sometimes that's just doing like a management buyout and figure out things in your internal team or getting the right systems and process in place before you go to the market or to an M &A advisor so that's one the other one that we're finding and more and more people are reaching out to us for support is you know younger entrepreneurs like even you know 25 30 year olds who like maybe they're they're not planning to sell the business for you know 10 years, 15 years, but they want to make sure that they're putting the right systems and processes in place so that they have the ability to do that.

14:36So, you know, sometime you never know, there could be a health issue. There could be something that pops up. So that's one thing that we always coach people on is you always want to build it to sell, even if you're, if you're not planning on it anytime soon. And what we find, if you implement the processes and systems and the things that we've done inside our own businesses, you actually might not want to sell and you might really enjoy your business. So yeah, any founders that either is looking to do that, or you're getting to the point where you're feeling a little burnt out or the business isn't growing and scaling and you need some help dealing with some people challenges and processes that that's where we can help.

15:10Awesome. Josh, your website let's, let's share tactically someone go to your websites, jldavisenterprises.com. What do they click on? What do they do? Yeah, you can go on there. We've got some free resources on there. Our team posts, you know, different frameworks and things. And then we also give the ability for a free consultation. So if anything sticks out on the website or anything that I've shared, if it resonates with anyone, we love to kind of meet with people and we're always giving away free, you know, frameworks and things to help them, whether they're a fit to work with us or not. We really believe that, you know, it's important to give back as much as possible.

15:47And, you know, even for me, I wouldn't be where I am today if people and give free advice and mentorship along the way. So yeah, if it's not a fit, if you're not at that scale where you're really looking to scale or grow your business, we still give away a lot of resources for, I mean, I love entrepreneurs and so anything we can do to help. Nice. All right, Josh Davis, founder, CEO of JL Davis Enterprises. That's the website, jldavisenterprises.com. Josh, it's been great to have you. Thanks so much, Josh. Appreciate it.

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